Why not a river auxiliary police force?
WE thought we can now move on to other topics after we wrote our last piece on the Iloilo River on March 13, 2009, but now we received additional information on the river issue in a long letter from our City Environment and Natural Resources Officer (CENRO), Noel Z. Hechanova.
On our part, with regard to cleaning and conserving the Iloilo River, we recommend that the kapitanes of the barangays along the river banks can lead the way.
We cited the example of Brgy. San Pedro, Molo, headed by Barangay Captain Cirilo Lapascua Jr. The river in front of their barangay is clean because of the Iloilo River Eco-Park that they built along the bank. They recently held an annual river festival which, among others, featured a banca race and other water games in front of the river eco-park.
In reaction to our first article on February 16, 2009 on the Iloilo River Development Master Plan — identifying the issues in the maintenance of the Iloilo River which seems to have not been effectively implemented – our CENRO, in his capacity also as Executive Director of the Iloilo River Development Council (IRDC) and in behalf of its Chairman, Mayor Jerry Treñas, furnished us by e-mail the Iloilo River Action Plan 2009, recently drafted by the council.
We commend IRDC for coming up with the document, complete with objectives, citing problems that can come up, approaches to solving them, monitoring, linkages, formulation of implementing rules and regulations, timetable for its implementation, etc.
What we are very concerned of, however, is the timetable for the implementation of this Iloilo River Action Plan 2009. We wish we can short-cut the plan and go immediately to action because we cannot lose time. Many people think that ours is a dying river.
Meantime, why don’t we create a River Auxiliary Police Force or the equivalent of the ones that confiscate driver’s licenses and catch real criminals — the river killers!
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